Post YK Lice!!

Last weekend was beautiful and we survived Yom Kippur. It was just after the last post below, after dinner. Sunday evening I noticed Davina had been scratching her hair a lot. Come here and let's take a look...

Now I didn't really know what I was looking for but there were these tiny white dots all over her hair. Daniel took off for the emergency pharmacy (everything's closed in Alsace normally on Sunday). Meanwhile, I took a look at the other two little heads... I had to call Daniel. Buy more!

Talia seems to be the source. She had a horrible infestation. I was pulling out lots of female bugs (I read up on the internet and looked at photos). It was disgusting!! They, of course, got to bed late...

The product didn't work. We had to buy the "real stuff", the chemical junk which gave the kids a rash. Wendy arrives from Australia in the middle of all this. Luckily, the kids rarely go up to the top floor so I'm not too concerned but still...

The laundry was a nightmare and there's all these small details like the carseats. I had to cover where theire heads touched. It gave me nightmares of bugs and sure enough, I found live eggs in mine and Daniel's hair too (no bugs but a female at least had left a calling card).

Ronnie was NOT cooperative, complaining about keeping the stuff in his hair...for a whole 40 minutes. It did tingle but it wasn't that horrible. He got some in his eye and that's when he decided to throw a fit. Davina kept touching it. The stuff has Milathion (sp?) which they sprayed over San Jose when I was a kid. A cancerogen, great!

The Day After Yom Kippor

Oh we made it through this less-jolly of holidays.

My friend Wendy is boucing around Germany. She hasn't called but I will be there at 2:10 on Wednesday at the station to pick her up! I hope she's surviving. That's my friend from Melbourne.

I think there is a sort of informal memorial today for Agnes. Too bad I wont be there but the rest of the "Colliver clan" will be. Since a lot of Agnes' friends didn't actually know each other, given the electic nature of her life, this will be a good opportunity. I imagine they'll have more incommon than just knowing Agnes!

Please note that my immediate family now has four different surnames but I will still refer to us as the "Colliver clan".

Religion is a subject in Alsatian public schools, as I previously posted (please don't make me post the link!) So now we finally have Talmud Torah (the fancy name they give Hebrew school here). Talia and Ronnie are together in it.

I ask Ronnie what he learned the first day. "Well, the lady told us that Zeus has a balance..." the French word for scale. "He decides who is good and who is bad, who will be rich and who will be poor."

Hmmmm, not sure of the materialism going on there...

So Talia says "No, not Zeus, Moses!" or honey, could it have been "Dieu"?? (said "dee-eww") which could kind of sound like "Zeus".

I left it and let him tell his dad the story that way. It was very amusing. My kid has seen "Hecules" too many times!

But on a more serious note, Davina has the same teacher Talia did. I went to the meeting, forgoing Talia's given at the same time. Yes, he's planning on doing the excusion again this year. What does he want to do with a bunch of 3 year olds in the forest for three days??? What purpose does it serve?? Of course, there were moms talking about the wonderful time their children had. Great.

I did speak up. Why was my child with a medical problem excluded? You didn't let her even do the first day. Then he happily tells me that he did let a mom spend the night because he son needed an injection at night. I was agast. I had heard about how my being there, just by picking Talia up, would upset the other kids and he lets another mother spend the night without batting an eye lid?? Okay, obviously he had a more serious "condition" than Talia did (which she outgrew as predicted) but the principal remains.

A bit of favoritism?? I was furious! I still am...

Shana Tova

Happy Jewish New Years to those of you who celebrated it. We're hoping that 5768 has better things in store!

Davina had her first pony lesson Wednesday. She loved it. I can't believe I'm signing a 3 1/2 year old up for pony lessons but she was so excited. I asked if most of the kids were the younger siblings of those already riding and the instructor said yes. We were the only ones so they've decided to only do the lessons on Saturday mornings, which works out well for us since the kids go to school.

Our "rentrée" went pretty smoothly. I had a terrible time with Talia's school supply list. It's so long! I go into the store and insisted on help. I really had to insist. The guy though, was nice. He looks at it. "This is a pretty involved list. Wait, you have an accent. You have your kids in some bilingual program of some sort..." I had to answer, yes, yes and no! The program is open to every child in Alsace, not just double national kids or whatever. Still...

Off to the dentist tomorrow. I get to have some sort of deep cleaning that involves anesetic and I have to go four times. How fun!

Wendy is coming from Australia next week but we wont get to see her until next week. Not much time together but oh well...